Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
Today’s the Day - SHTF Test Run |
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bruss01
Adviser Group Joined: January 12 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 448 |
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Posted: March 17 2006 at 9:07am |
Ok, folks - the Mrs. and I have decided to make a test run on our preps. We'll be adding a fictional context along with a journal of our experiences on this 48 hour excursion into what a Bird Flu quarantine might feel like. We are doing this primarily for our own benefit, but we'll provide it here for the interest of anyone who cares to read it. We will be powered down during the actual quarantine, and will not have web access during that time, so the journal/story won't be in real-time, sorry. The fictional bits will be in regular text, our actual experiences will be highlighted. I know, I know... 48 hours is not much of a shakedown cruise, but we're hoping to learn something from it anyway to help improve our preps, maybe bring to light some things we may not have thought of, see if things work as planned, etc. as in, will we be able to get by without heat? Will we go nuts with the cat kept indoors? Do beans and rice cook up in the pressure cooker the way the book says. The test begins for us at 5 pm tonight and runs thru 5 pm Sunday night. I'll be starting the fictional pre-amble today, and hopefully posting the remainder on Sunday night.. I'd like to keep comments in a separate thread, please, so that people can read the narrative without sifting thru other's comments. So I'll be starting a separate thread for comments on the test run. |
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Good Luck Bruss..we will keep the house in order while you and the Mrs...are gone...pass our wishes on to her also.. Muskrat... |
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fritz
Adviser Group Joined: February 04 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 332 |
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bruss, Good luck to you and the Mrs.!!! See you on the other side. Can't wait to here all about your maiden voyage back to basics!
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"I am only one; but still I am one, I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do." -- Hellen Keller
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swankyc
V.I.P. Member Joined: January 11 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 314 |
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Are you nuts, 48 hours should be perfect! You'll be able to average out propane usage for cooking, light (lanterns) and heating, actual water consumption for cooking and hygeine, etc... |
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I'm not afraid, I'm paranoid. Dont talk too loud, they are listening.
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calendula
Valued Member Joined: February 18 2006 Status: Offline Points: 345 |
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Bruss: Let me know about how your way of thinking gets affected. |
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I am not here to reason, I am here to create"
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Deej
V.I.P. Member Joined: December 29 2005 Status: Offline Points: 285 |
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good luck, can't wait to hear all about it... |
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dee
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Good luck, and thanks in advance for sharing your insight into what we have to look forward to.
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bruss01
Adviser Group Joined: January 12 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 448 |
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Sorry folks, turns out today was NOT the day after all. Our chief objective in running the simulation was to identify any unforseen holes in our preps. However, as we got closer and closer to zero hour, a few things occured to us. We have some serious holes in our preps... nothing that couldn't be remedied with 48 hours notice, but the test assumes ZERO notice. On that basis, there were too many KNOWN issues for it to be a valid test for UNKNOWN issues. After discussing this between ourselves for at least an hour, my wife and I have decided to devote this weekend to finishing up the last few sticky little details in our preps, and give it a good, honest, more VALID test next weekend. Hope none of you are too "disgusted" with us for postponing, but we feel if we are going to go to the trouble, inconvenience and discomfort of making a test run of a pandemic scenario, we want to make it really worthwhile and learn what we intended to learn from it. Thanks for understanding. |
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Daydreamer
Valued Member Joined: February 24 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 439 |
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That's okay bruss. We can wait. Do me a favor though and let us know what holes you found in your preps that you needed to take care of. I have lots of holes in mine that I need to fill up and I'm sure that you have thought of some that I haven't.
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Don't put off tomorrow what you can PREP today
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Penham
Chief Moderator Moderator Joined: February 09 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 14913 |
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Would you mind sharing what your "holes" were. I keep going over stuff, over and over, and keep coming up with other things I still need. I would like to know what other peoples holes are that maybe they will help the rest of us in our preps.
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Your effort is still worthy of great praise. |
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You are further along than us! I am VERY interested in hearing your findings when you get done - we hope to be ready in 4-6 weeks, depending on whether i can get our power options set up. Worst case, at that time we will try to test anyway. Good luck when you do "go"! |
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kayeeng3
Valued Member Joined: February 27 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 33 |
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I agree with everyone here, I am looking forward to learning from your experience, and applaud your bravery for doing a "test run". something I am not sure I am brave enough to do, although I know I really need to. Please keep us updated on your progress.
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kaye in Colorado
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MauiSurviver
Valued Member Joined: March 17 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 8 |
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Would be hard to do a test without diseased masses trying to pry into your sh*t. I heard that in a pandemic if your resisdence is within a 1/4 mile of another persons you might as well abandon. Look for areas you can make a get away to and live off the land. Learn outdoor survival for your areas climate and environment and gather friends that can help you. I can tell you living parinoid cooped up in a house for an unknown amount of time, possibly a lifetime will be just as bad as WW2 shell shock. What will happen you when need to sh*t and your house is surrounded and the plumbling is off? Will it be fun to guard every window and door with a shotgun over night? Will it be worth the parinoia to be around the possibly infected public? Not for me I would rather go into the wildnerness with good friends and live off the land.
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Zanna
Valued Member Joined: January 13 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 17 |
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Hey All, Zanna, Mrs. Bruss here. Yep, we’ve got holes - big ones that you can drive a truck through. A) The garage is a disaster in and of itself. We’d break a leg just trying to get trying to get to the camp stove! We have a few Costco-size packages of TP and paper towels that have slid off their neat stack into a pile. Albert is not alone in his TP fetish, though we can’t hold a candle to his stash. B) Our go-boxes are in disarray. While we are “hunkering down” instead of “bugging out”, there are items in there that we’ll need. (Funny enough, our “bug-out boxes” are nearly identical to the plastic tubs the couple featured on last night’s ABC news segment were loading.) C) Bruss’s closet shelving project is behind schedule and so about a quarter of our supplies are stacked in the corner of the TV room. This project was a perfect opportunity for Bruss to get that table saw he’s been lusting after. I’m told it’s a testosterone thing, I wouldn’t understand. In addition, this is the first nice weekend in weeks and there are chores that have been called on account of rain that must get done. D) We need a stainless steel bowl to pressure-cook our beans and rice and I have been meaning to replace the Dr. Bronner’s with Tea Tree Oil that we usually use for camping. It’s biodegradable and doesn’t take a lot of water to rinse dishes or people. For clothing, I have Kookaburra Wool Wash, which also needs less than commercial detergents for washing or rinsing. E) The Hubby needs dental work and his current issues bother him. This is, quite literally, a “known hole” and must get fixed. I can tell you from personal experience that relatively minor dental issues can morph into major problems overnight if one is living under stressful conditions. Be they “no phone, no lights, motor car” or final’s week, stress is stress. He’s being seen on Wednesday for the first time in ten years. F) Now for a biggie that occurred to us just the other night: All those wonderful instructions on how to sanitize our water, cook beans, make tortillas, etc. ARE ALL ON THE COMPUTER! Great. Fabulous, huh? Good thing we bought a new ream of printer paper. If this were the real thing, the issues above would have to stand and we’d just have to cope. We thought going for it anyway, the above notwithstanding, but the point of this exercise is to find the flaws, and if we found this many glaring faults in the week prior to the test, there are probably dozens more that we can’t see, and will be found only by the dry run. Maui’s idea cracked me up. We live in a highly populated area, the epitome suburban-sprawl. I suppose we could live off the dandelions in the neighbor’s lawn for about 30 minutes…dandelion salad, dandelion wine…but hunkering down for this particular threat is our best bet. |
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Scotty
Adviser Group Joined: March 06 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 846 |
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MauiSurvivor: This is a case of horses for courses. You are certainly right about the sleep thing and that would apply in all circumstances. Bebo came up with an idea that would definitely work but it can only be applied in certain geographical areas and it requires a collective community spirit. (Just don't mention tuna fish) If you have the right survival instincts and a huge empty space to move in then I guess your strategy is right for you. My personal best guess is that the safest place to be will be a high rise in N.Y.City. If they can solve the water problem then they've cracked it. The chances of getting a quarter of a mile from another house in the U.K. are close to zero so I've chosen an entirely different and rather obtuse approach to the problem of self-defence. We all just need to do what we can with what we have. |
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moolooman
Valued Member Joined: March 18 2006 Status: Offline Points: 14 |
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I must say brush, I am a little disappointed you didnt go through with it as a trusted and respected member of this forum I thought you would have gone that extra mile. I mean what if the shtf right then?? I think we must all learn from your obvious short comings and make sure we are actually REALLY prepared. Nothing personal mate but bird flu requires us to get through so we can re populate the earth with good people, not people that only do half a job :) |
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Bird flu will enter like a thief in the night and inflict its "disgusting" rath for the unprepped.
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MauiSurviver
Valued Member Joined: March 17 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 8 |
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try to find me here, hiding isnt too bad. hehe I would most definatly strike a deal with your neighbores. Maui has a huge problem with mentaly ill people, I dont know how many are around you. Thats why I want to leave population. I dont want to have to beat up or kill some wacko over food, water whatever. Would be a tough situation in a big city for sure. I would be sure to make alot of friends!! haha |
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Welcome surviver, that a neat picture, are you really in there? If you have a questions please ask away, someone will try and help you. Where are you in there??
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MauiSurviver
Valued Member Joined: March 17 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 8 |
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no im not in the picture, thats not even the wilderness thats right off the road...
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MooLoo... I must say that while I am unfamiliar with your other four posts I find the one above more than a little grating and the height of rudeness. Bruss01 is a longstanding member who contributes to the knowledge-base of this forum steadfastly and unselfishly. If all our members contributed a 10th of what Bruss has to our education and preparedness we would be nigh onto invulnerable. I can only hope that I misinterpreted your post or that you meant humor that simply did not transmit to my brain synapses. SZ |
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Daydreamer
Valued Member Joined: February 24 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 439 |
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SZ~I took it the same way that you did. I was shocked when I read his post. Sometimes the internet doesn't show humor like it would in real life so I am hoping that this was the case with this post from moolooman.
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Don't put off tomorrow what you can PREP today
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moolooman
Valued Member Joined: March 18 2006 Status: Offline Points: 14 |
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Sorry that you feel affronted by my comments, but servival is a 100% thing. When i was in the Australian SAS if we made any errors it would have cost lives, bird flu will cost lives... They say practice makes perfect... Perfect practice makes even more perfect.
Now is the time to not drop the ball folks, less internet chat more prepping...
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Bird flu will enter like a thief in the night and inflict its "disgusting" rath for the unprepped.
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Oh yeah, mooloo, I remember you now! How could I forget my fellow SAS brethren.... Yeah Right. Sorry dude, I'm not buying. Shooters shoot, they don't tell you how tight their patterns are. |
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moolooman
Valued Member Joined: March 18 2006 Status: Offline Points: 14 |
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Yes they do.
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Bird flu will enter like a thief in the night and inflict its "disgusting" rath for the unprepped.
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Spoon
Valued Member Joined: January 29 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 607 |
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mooman... in your case, I couldn't agree more. Bruss and Zanna, I look forward to next week's dry run report. Good luck! |
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It's not so much the apocalypse... but the credit card bills ;-)
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John Mitchell
Valued Member Joined: March 18 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3 |
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Good luck for next week Bruss, after your last "disappointment" it would be nice to see you actually get it right. Remember with bird flu, there are no second chances.
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May the Force be with you...
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Falcon
Valued Member Joined: February 20 2006 Status: Offline Points: 684 |
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Zanna I love your icon, is that your cat?
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I look at the stars and wonder what it would be like to touch them.
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kittles
advanced Member Joined: February 10 2006 Status: Offline Points: 21 |
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Bruss and Zanna--I too, look forward to your dry run next week! I appreciate all your contributions to this list! Your post concerning the holes you found before starting made me realize there are some holes here too. That's what its all about, finding the holes. So it shouldn't be a total dissapointment to you, right? I'm thankful that you are going to share the results with us. I'm sure my prepping has alot of holes, afterall this isn't something I have done my whole life. But yet I feel like my whole life and the lives of my loved ones are at stake. Very stressful trying to anticipate what may transpire and prepare for it all......smart a$$ comments like moolooman's sure don't help a bit. Hey moolooman, since you seem to have mastered prepping, why don't you do a dry run, say, starting right now?? |
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You may have missed the conditions in the agreement you accepted to
join this board. Contribute positively, with respect for ideas
different than your own, or go away.
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Blue sky..taken care of for now. We have been getting an increasing amount of un solicited posts from folks like this. I have removed it to a holding pen area where mods higher up than me will decide the course of action. I apologize for not catching it sooner.-Kev
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Very cool. You moderators really ARE watching. Just don't like rude people. It shuts down good dialogue.
I wondered why the board was so "clean" to date! Nice job! |
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Penham
Chief Moderator Moderator Joined: February 09 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 14913 |
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Thank you mods for doing such a great job!
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I think that people should be able to post whatever they feel. I appreciate Bruss01, and do not agree with what Mooman said to him. But, I still feel that Mooman had the right to voice his opinion, whatever the opinion. Also, what Mooman said about making mistakes; "if we made any errors it would have cost lives." If he is from that background he would feel very strongly about stuff really ingrained into his consciousness. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you and is abrasive about it, doesn’t mean they should have their posts removed from the forum. I went through far worse abuse on the Sinners Saved by Grace-1 thread. I endured horrific things said to and about me, simply because I informed someone that I found their post to be offensive! (I thought it blasphemous to have Holy Scripture supposedly supporting a claim that God had damned a list of entertainers including John Lennon). Anyway, you didn’t see me with my hands up in arms… insisting that someone's posts be removed, did you? Of course not. Bruss01 is a big boy. I'm sure he can handle it. What do you say, Bruss01? |
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Hi I'm appalled your points are well taken it's a fine line between abuse and communication. I personally have a hard time with not nice or not polite conversation. Disagree is good but don't make it personal. The ownership is very open minded and so far I have seen a high regard for personal freedom of speech. Each mod brings their values to the table. I'm a moderate to conservative in social etiquet and all mods take a bad thing issue in for group discussion. Rarely will some one be outright banned...but it does happen, recently actually. Good to read open discussion on the topic. -Kevin |
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All --
Just to clarify, my comments were directed to a poster that the mods pulled. Called REdneck I think.. it is was an amazing attack on the posters in this thread. Complete with pretty nasty verbage. I just happened to be online when it showed up. Its gone now. It was just counter to the "guiding principles" of the board was my thought. |
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I didn't see the post, but my opinion still stands. Unless someone is clearly being extremely disruptive for the sake of being disruptive, and or using profane language, they shouldn't be addressed. My philosophy is having an open mind is a good thing. Being dogmatic, divisive and exclusive is a very BAD thing.
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Ei nei hale kakumei, brodda ! The picture you posted is beautiful, but not impervious to danger. Personally, I do not think that I would do well out there with the poisonous centipedes, flying roaches that are bigger than bats and of course the deadly and ever so terrifying wild boar. All of my mother's family live in the islands. I can go on and on talking story... about all the scary situations many people have gotten into in Hawaii (excluding the flying roaches)... My brother came very close to losing his leg because of a centipede bite. My uncle almost lost his leg while hunting wild boar. And he is ono! He's lucky he wasn't killed. You should see the scar on his leg. Makes you think twice. I certainly wouldn't want to be out there! Don't worry about beating up or killing some wacko over food or water. Worry about defending yourself from ferocious wild boar who look upon you as food. Good luck hiding . Aloha! |
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You nailed it, that is exactly what this guy was up to. Completely inconsistent with the rest of the board. |
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Zanna
Valued Member Joined: January 13 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 17 |
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Yep, Falcon, that is Raven, one of my kitties. See the link for info on Raven. Re: abrasive commentary, etc.: Yes, "Im Appalled", Bruss is a big boy. Don't worry about him. We do, however appreciate the kind words in support of dealing with the bigger holes this weekend. Gracias. We are not using this delay as an opportunity to stock up on additional "Luxury Items". With the exception of the soap and the bowl for the pressure cooker, what we have on hand now is what we’ll have next weekend. So, shelves were built, yard work was done, and while the garage still isn’t a model of cleanliness and order, at least we won’t break our necks. The bowl for the pressure cooker is kind of a big deal. Bruss went a little nuts at Costco and came home with tons of rice and beans. (If we have a flood, we’ll just use them in lieu of sandbags!) We’ve got to know if A) we can cook the darn things and B) what we need to do to them to make them palatable in an SHTF scenario. As for the Dr Bronner’s…. well, I’m a Virgo, okay? G'Night! [Edited for font size by Mod. Libby] |
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Deej
V.I.P. Member Joined: December 29 2005 Status: Offline Points: 285 |
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bruss, i understand the need to be ready for your trial run, but i really loved your hypothetical - sp ? post... i don't think i can wait for another chapter... hurry ... or maybe you can post a little more before your ready for you trial run. it was really good. |
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dee
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Daydreamer
Valued Member Joined: February 24 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 439 |
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Deej, I agree with you. I am anxiously awaiting the next installment of his story. It was really good. |
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Don't put off tomorrow what you can PREP today
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Thomas Angel
V.I.P. Member Joined: February 16 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 622 |
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Today I carefully went through every piece of equipment I intend to use when SHTF... Had a couple of visitors here. One of them told me I looked tired, and the other one nodded in agreement. I looked at myself in the mirror after they left... |
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I LIKE SCARY RIDES
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Daydreamer
Valued Member Joined: February 24 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 439 |
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TA~there will be time for sleeping later.
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Don't put off tomorrow what you can PREP today
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